Friday, April 16, 2010

The last few boards of Bioshock 2 are some of the best I've seen in a video game. For most of the game, you play as Delta, the original Big Daddy, a warrior in an armored diving suit. You wander through the hellish, decaying underwater city known as Rapture, fighting off hordes of monstrous enemies in an effort to rescue your daughter. Along the way, you rescue (or kill, depending on your predilections) several helpless young girls called Little Sisters. The levels typically look like this:

But just as you reach your daughter, the game's chief villain manages to incapacitate you. It is now you who need rescuing. Deliverance comes in the guise of a Little Sister. After hours of slaughtering enemies with shotguns, powerdrills, spearguns, and other vicious weapons, you have to adjust to an entirely different viewpoint - - wandering through Rapture as an unarmed and fragile little girl. As you explore this new area, it first appears that the lair of your nemesis, Dr. Sofia Lamb, has been untouched by the decay ruining the rest of the city. Her chambers are filled with roses, and butterflies, and well-dressed people. There is a warm glow everywhere:

But as you come across an angel, you realize that the warm glow is an illusion. And that although the Little Sisters, due to the experiments done on them, may see beauty everywhere, this area is just as corrupted as the rest of Rapture. The world flickers between angles, roses, and ballgowns, and the grim reality of the place:

Here's a video playthrough of that level:

Eventually, you find and turn over to your daughter the various pieces of her Big Sister armor. Using that suit, she frees your true body, and explains that you will be able to summon her when overwhelmed by enemies. A brief instructional video explains how the power works:

If you've played the game nobly, it ends with you sacrificing your life to save your daughter and the other Little Sisters. She and they say goodbye to Rapture's life of violent struggle:

You can watch video of that ending here:

But if you've needlessly slaughtered during the game, your daughter assumes your violent nature, and promises to unleash it upon the world. There are no Little Sisters left in this ending because you killed them during gameplay. The final shot is of corpses from Rapture floating up to the surface: